


A Lesson in Tactics

by Name1



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Cara is my friend, Conversations, F/M, Instant Connection, Mutual Pining, easy camaraderie, friends....right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28614687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name1/pseuds/Name1
Summary: How do you bring down an AT-ST? Talking it out, of course.orCara and Din get to know each other while planning a military-style exercise.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin/Cara Dune
Comments: 27
Kudos: 76





	A Lesson in Tactics

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's another Sorgan story. Don't judge me :D  
> No plot, just casually talking.

"Look, Mando, I'm sure you're a good fighter," the dropper says to him, "and I'm not that bad myself, but the two of us against _that_ thing? No thanks. I don't really want to die today." Cara was obviously referring to that AT-ST they knew existed from just the giant footprints they found in the woods. The fact that he hadn't decided to call the whole thing off had both impressed her and planted the seed in her head that this guy might have taken one too many blows to the helmet. 

  


He tries to sell her on the one thing they do have. "At least we have the element of surprise."

"Great...... " she says, full of sarcasm, "as in S _urprise!_ We're dead."

"You giving up so fast?" he taunts her. He knew the challenge would get her going. For the tough shell she boasted, she was remarkably easy for him to understand. Maybe she was too much like him.

His words made her bristle just as expected. Apparently she didn't like being called a quitter either. "Look, there's _two_ of us who can actually fight and the villagers only have a handful of your blasters, some charges, and a lot of pointy sticks. I'm just being realistic here."

"We just need to think about it," he says, "come up with a plan that plays to our strengths."

"So, think about it," she challenges him. "What would you have us do?"

"Shoot at it and hope it explodes," he says embarrassingly quickly.

She actually snorted pretty loudly and was shocked to hear such an undignified and surprising sound come out of her. 'That's such a _man_ answer', she thinks. "You put the _man_ in _man_ dalorian, that's for sure. That plating is four inches thick, genius." 

He doesn't focus on the barb and instead corrects her other statement. "You know there are _women_ Mandalorians too, right?"

"Of course there are women," she argues. "That's where baby Mandos come from, but they wouldn't have said that." 

It's his turn to make a snorting laugh. She was probably right. The women he grew up with were usually less hot-headed than the men and didn't rush into things before analyzing the situation.

He asks her for her take. "Okay then.... What would _you_ do, esteemed military expert?" 

They're sitting side by side, sharing the trunk of a tree to support their tired backs at the end of the day. They're close enough their shoulders are touching but it's too comfortable to move or make space. She turns her head to look at him questioningly.

"Why are you asking me for my input anyway?" she wonders aloud. "I thought Mandalorians are known to be some of the fiercest warriors in the galaxy and I'm just a humble ex-rebellion lackey."

"Bullshit. You fought in the war," he reminds her. "You've rallied people and allocated resources across enemy lines. Even out where I'm from, people heard tales of droppers and their missions, so cut the crap. Even as an underdog you were a force to be reckoned with, or were those just _stories_?" He was surprised that the same tactics and words that riled him up and got under his skin clearly had the same effect on her. He could almost feel the urge to prove him wrong stirring under her skin. Being told he was all talk and no action had always been his hidden weak spot too. They were alike in that way as well. The ways were adding up it seemed....

"They might have been more than stories.," she admits through her pursed lips.

 _That's what he thought_. "I'm going to ask you something and I don't mean it to be insulting," he tells her. The last thing he wants to do is insult her if she really was just a lackey, but he has to know. He thinks she was more than that though.

"I'm pretty sure it's going to be a great question when you have to preface it like that," she says. It almost seems like she's teasing him, but he hasn't been teased in a long time--not in a friendly, playful way anyway. 

"Were you at the bottom of the ranks or were you at the top with people under you?" he questions her. "I just get the feeling you've done this before. Something about you says you've faced odds like this before and had people looking to you for answers."

 _Damn. he was too perceptive_ , she thinks.

"I've been both," she tells him, honestly. "Toward the end, I had hundreds of people under me," she explains. "I was in charge of a hell of a lot of angry kids with something to prove and wanted a piece of the Empire just like I did. I was able to keep most of them alive despite their best efforts to get themselves killed in dramatic fashion."

"That's what I figured. I bet you were good at it." He didn't mean it to sound so much like a compliment, but it just seemed like a simple fact. Her presence screamed _capable_ and _strong--s_ omeone people would look to when things got tough. He'd love to hear more of her story some time. 

She shrugs. "I did my best," she admits. "As long as it didn't keep me from getting my own revenge, I didn't mind the responsibility. Someone had to keep those idiots alive and remind them that storming a heavily fortified barricade head-on with nothing but their blasters and the clothes on their backs was a stupid idea."

"That's what I thought," he says, feeling more than a little smug at being able to read her.

She never talked about that time, but she found she didn't really mind in this instance. "Why do you ask?" she wondered.

"I can see the wheels in your head turning looking at the landscape, the weather, everything around you," he explains. "It's impressive and I'm not easily impressed." He hopes the next part won't offend her either. "I'm not going to ask you about the final straw that made you leave the rebellion since you avoided it before, but do you ever miss it? Being a part of something bigger than yourself, I mean?"

"Sometimes...... maybe....... " she admits. "The nights are really quiet--suffocating almost, with how much _**nothing**_ is there is all around me."

"Yeah. I know what you mean," he commiserates with her. "The covert used to be full of laughter and yelling and the constant buzz that was made up of all the domestic sounds of everyday life."

"You don't do well with quiet either?" she asks, clearly intrigued with this unusual man who wasn't so unusual after all.

He shakes his head, but barely, and she almost missed it since he was so close to her. "I'm used to traveling alone and the kid doesn't make much noise," he says." I have to admit it's a nice change to hear some background noise that's not people shooting at me."

"Then I'll be sure to keep running my mouth then," she offers, like it's some great sacrifice. "I'm helpful like that."

He lets out a dramatic overexaggerated groan. "As if I could ever stop you," he says, and she can hear something warm in his voice that makes her freeze as something inside her recognizes it and wants to hang onto it.

 _Shit....._ She felt something stir in her chest she thought was long since dead. She knows she should put a stop to the playful banter before it was too late and she couldn't go back. 

She looked at him and found him watching her; waiting for her to speak, like he was actually interested in what she had to say. _This idiot must have actually thought she was a good person--some kind of hero. Time to set him straight._

"Don't look at me like that," she says, as harshly as she can manage.

"Like what?" he asks. _She couldn't even see his face._

"Like I'm some kind of hero," she says in distaste. "Trust me, I did stupid shit as a soldier too. Don't be fooled."

He could practically see the insecurities under her skin even in the low light. 

"Like what?" he asks. "Tell me something stupid." He couldn't believe he was initiating so many conversations or being so chatty. This wasn't like him at all, but she made it just flow from him. It was natural talking with her. 

She let out a small laugh to herself as she remembered something she hadn't thought of in years--she had all but forgotten it until now. She meant to push him away but found herself wanting to share this story with him to maybe make him laugh. She hears herself start talking. "I took this bet one time that I wouldn't eat a Bellassan hot pepper," she tells him. "Some of the recruits said that if I couldn't do it, I couldn't make them do a hundred pushups in the morning before sun-up. They wanted out of it but ignoring the orders of a commanding officer was a big deal so they thought challenging me was a better way."

"You know they were goading you," Mando says knowingly. "You didn't do it, did you?"

"Fuck yeah, I did it!" she exclaims happily. She sounds proud of her idiocy, even though it was stupid. "I ate that damn thing on principle and puked for hours. Snot and mucus everywhere."

He shouldn't find the image of her proud and undignified as amusing as he did. "What lovely picture you just painted. Thank you for that." 

She snorts. "Anytime."

"What possessed you?" he asked. "Why did you do it if you knew they were baiting you?"

She laughed at that. It was getting easier to laugh the more times he made it happen. "There wasn't any great thought process there at all. I was maybe 26-28 at the time. First recruits under me wanted to push me and I was young-ish and a woman so I had to prove them wrong. It taught me something though about choosing having to win over my own well being."

"So they got out of the hundred pushups?" he confirms. "You kept your word?"

"Yeah.........I'm a woman of my word," she says. "I made them do two-hundred instead." 

He chuckled and she felt like she'd just gotten a glimpse at something very rare and valuable.

"Top that Mando. I'll wait." The smirk on her face had to be illegal in at least seven systems.

Din found himself unusually talkative for some reason right now. Those ' _right nows_ ' were becoming more and more common the more time he spent around her. He found himself wanting to impress her, one-up her, and make her laugh, all at the same time. He'd never been a storyteller, but he can't help himself from talking and likely making an idiot of himself. "I've never eaten a hot pepper since vomiting in my helmet would be truly unfortunate, but I've done stupid shit too," he assures her. _Why did his tongue feel so loose?_ It was like he couldn't stop talking. He kept everything so close to the vest but it was easy to talk to her. She looked at him like the helmet wasn't even there. More than once, he actually had the urge to reach up and confirm it was still on his head.....it was the strangest feeling to feel so exposed just from a look. It wasn't that she was trying to see through it or imagine what he looked like under it, it just didn't exist. She looked at his 'face' like she'd look at anyone.

"The first rifle I ever owned I almost ruined and got taken away," he says, as he remembers that weapon fondly. "In reality, it was a hunk of junk but she was _mine_ and the best thing I'd ever seen at the badass age of fourteen." She chuckled along with him and he liked it so much he knew he'd tell a dozen more embarrassing stories to prolong it. "I used grease instead of oil on the scope and it got everywhere, including the lens and the laser. Took me a week of missing easy shots before I asked for help. I couldn't see through the damn thing at all but was too proud to admit it," he tells her. "Everyone thought I had an eye injury until I finally fessed up and got help fixing it."

. 

"Whoever fixed it," she asked, genuinely interested in his story, "did they laugh at you?"

"Of course." He still hears the laughter of the weapons master, who until that day thought he could do no wrong. He'd never heard that hard-ass laugh before though, so there was that ....

"Good," she laughed, and he found himself laughing at the memory along with her. "I would have laughed too." She shoved his shoulder and he let himself sway with it before shoving her back.

"I'm not the one who ate that pepper and was covered in snot."

"Shut up," she laughed and shoved him. "I was a sight to behold, Mando. Magnificent, even."

He bet she was. She _always_ was--even then, she must have looked radiant in victory. Cocky and smug. The same way she looked when she got the better of him in one of their matches that left him unusually warm even in the shade. 

"Back to the topic at hand," he says, to get this back on track before he loses control of this conversation entirely or says something stupid. "What would you tell your troops if they told you they were pinned down by that thing and asked you for a strategy?"

She thinks about it for a second before answering, "I'd tell them 'you gotta get that thing on the ground'," she decides. "As long as that thing's on its legs and can rotate those guns, you don't stand a chance. You gotta bring it down--limit its mobility."

"What are your options then, Dune?"

"The way I look at it, either take out it's legs or take out it's guns," she states. "The guns are a smaller target though and the legs are huge."

"They're thick steel though," he reminds her, "blasting it won't work." He can see the wheels turning in her head. 

"Look Mando," she thinks aloud, "if I wanted you on the ground I could either shove you to get your center of balance off....but that won't work with that thing.....or I go low......"

"Stand here," she instructs him and he follows along. "Squat down a little. Bend at the knees like a walker. I'm not going to break your leg. I promise." Her cheeky smirk definitely didn't make him nervous--there was another reason for that feeling in his stomach, he was sure of it. She's mostly muttering to herself as she works out solutions and circles him. "Those things can't stand from the ground or correct themselves if they trip--that we know". She kicks the back of his knee with no real force and watches as he bends his knee more to absorb the light blow. She's addressing more of her comments to him as she gets a better grasp on what will and won't work. "If you can break the joint from the front, we could..... no..... shit.... we don't have any kind of swinging force like that." She kicked the side of his knee and his ankle wobbled. When he corrected easily, she swept his foot and he stumbled. 

"Those villagers dug those ponds right?" she asks in barely contained excitement, as it comes to her. "If we can get it on uneven ground or to step in a hole, it either breaks its leg or it's a sitting duck to aim for the tiny viewports and the person at the controls."

It only takes him a second to visualize it. "That could work,"' he admits. "It doesn't take any real strength either; just being smarter than your opponent."

She wipes her hands together like she's solved the puzzle and is done for the night. "That's how you take down someone bigger than you, or didn't they teach you that in Mando school?"

He's full on smiling at her now, though she can't see it. 

"So you had one good idea, Cara. Don't let it go to your head."

"Oh, I'm full of 'em," she says boastfully.

  
"You're full of _something_."

"Don't flatter me," she says in a genuinely amused voice, "we have work to do."

He realizes again she's not just a pretty face. He thought of going for the control room at the top or trying to blast it to kingdom come, but not the legs--that was better. She's not just good at brute force, but she's also clever......she's patient. Did he just call her ' _Cara'_? He meant to call her ' _Dune'_ like every other time. 

Turns out **Dune** is also skilled at strategy, planning, analyzing opponents and formulating a plan. She's level-headed and analytical, but still brave and fearless and a damn good shot. _Why does she have to look like that too?_ It's probably another tactic of hers to distract the enemy, except he could see her beauty was all natural. She might be able to use her looks as a weapon but that wasn't even five-percent of what made her so alluring or so dangerous. 

"Tomorrow, let's go back into the woods and see what kind of lumber we can harvest," she says, taking charge. "We don't want to wait too long and lose our element of surprise if they send a scouting party or that thing decides to show up one night."

"I agree," he says, supporting her plan. "First light, then?"

She turned to him again. It was dark now after the sun had gone down, but he could see her cheeks and the evidence she was smiling "It's like you can read my mind, Mando."

"Or maybe we just have similar thoughts."

..................

"We should bring them to us, not go to them," she adds later, as she goes over their available troops in her head. "None of those villagers can shoot worth a damn while moving. They can't even really manage from standing still, but it's the best we got."

"I agree." He didn't feel defensive about a woman coming up with a better plan than he did. All to the contrary, he supported her idea even more than he did _his_. This might actually work. 

"If they can hit the broad side of a building, they're a step above most Imps or bandits," he reminds her. The problem was that even the best of the villagers could hardly hold a gun and only one of them seemed to know how to load it, but she'd be terrible in a fight.

Cara nods and seemed to remember how little back up they would actually have "You're right." There wasn't a single person besides the two of them who could run and jump and shoot with precision; not to mention run head first at an enemy without cowering or hesitating. If the villagers fired off enough rounds as cover though, maybe a few of them would hit the target. He just hoped they didn't accidentally shoot him or Cara in the back in their exuberance.

"If we can cut down some big enough trees, we can build a structure to kind of funnel them towards us when they come from the woods," she tells him, as they finally stand from the base of the tree and start to make their way back toward their lodging. "It brings the fight to _us_ and gives us home ground."

"We'll want it to be dark," he adds, and she nods as she walks beside him. He can feel their plans converging into one larger one.

"We can light some fires too, to draw their eye away from where people are hiding in the dark," he suggests out loud. 

He wondered what this feeling was that crept up the more the plan came together? This was _fun_ , he realized. He was actually having _fun_ planning this with her despite the circumstances looming over the village. Bickering and agreeing and working through problems together was enjoyable. Who would have thought?

"You and I can eliminate as many of them as we can at their camp before we lead the remaining men back to the village," she offers, as she runs the evolving plan by him.

"That's what I would do too," he tells her. "Charging in guns blazing is sometimes not as effective as waiting for them to make a mistake and come at you on home turf."

She made that weird half-snort-half-laugh again. "Says the guy who ended up on his back when he followed a stranger out of a cantina."

"Shut up," he says, but there's no heat in it. She got him fair and square. "You should get some rest," he says. She looks tired by the time they make it to their building where they sleep.

"I can never sleep before a fight," she admits, "especially one that will be won or lost by essentially just the two of us."

She sat on the porch to get comfortable instead of heading inside to sleep and he found himself sitting next to her on the steps. "I'll stay up with you then."

She scoffs. "You don't have to do that."

"I know, but I want to," he offers. "We're in this together now and it doesn't seem as impossible as it did before. We're doing this for the right reason too. That has to count for something."

"For lunch money?" she asks with a smirk, raising her hand as if she were raising a toast. He can hear the humor in her voice. He's getting used to finding it now. It's easy when you know where to look or how to make her smile.

"Yeah......for lunch money." He was surprised to hear humor in his as well. 

He was doing this for a lot of reasons it seemed, though none of them involved a meager bag of credits:

.....for these people who couldn't help themselves

.....for the little guy who stood no chance

.....for doing the right thing when it was easier to walk away. He was invested in this plan now--not just for all those reasons, but also for the stubborn woman next to him. He wanted to be there when she pulled this off and felt like she made a difference. He wanted to be the one to tell her she had been right and come up with a plan better than his. 

This shouldn't be as much fun as it was proving to be though, but he couldn't bring himself to feel guilty. The goal of saving the village was a serious one, but that didn't mean they couldn't enjoy themselves a little taking down these goons and showing off a bit for each other too. It had been a long time since he felt that spark of competitiveness that wasn't nasty or envious, just good natured and friendly....maybe something almost flirtatious, if that adjective could even be used to describe either of them. The two of them one-upping each other was fun in a way he couldn't remember having before and he didn't want it to be over yet. He couldn't wait to watch her take this thing down. When this was over, maybe she'd be interested in bounty hunting if he did a good job of selling it....He'd never had a partner before, but he'd welcome it if she'd leave this rock with him.

They had a big day tomorrow, but staying up and listening to the crickets and frogs with her made him feel more rested and rejuvenated than a whole night's worth of sleep. When he looked over to her after a while and saw her nodding off sitting up, he nudged her awake and convinced her to go lay down--she obviously trusted him or she wouldn't have been so pliant when she was sleepy. He stayed up a few more minutes to enjoy the solace of this green planet and the unusual comfort of a friend who was sleeping close by.

 _Time to get some sleep_ , he thought. Tomorrow they'd be taking down an AT-ST and he was looking forward to it.

.......

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear from you :)
> 
> thanks for reading


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